Question: Jessica decided to paint some of the rooms at her 8-room inn, Jessica's Place. She discovered she needed $\frac{4}{5}$ of a can of paint per room. If Jessica had 4 cans of paint, how many rooms could she paint?
We can divide the cans of paint (4) by the paint needed per room ( $\frac{4}{5}$ of a can) to find out how many rooms Jessica could paint. $ \dfrac{{4 \text{ cans of paint}}} {{\dfrac{4}{5} \text{ can per room}}} = {\text{ rooms}} $ Dividing by a fraction is the same as multiplying by the reciprocal. The reciprocal of ${\dfrac{4}{5} \text{ can per room}}$ is ${\dfrac{5}{4} \text{ rooms per can}}$ $ {4\text{ cans of paint}} \times {\dfrac{5}{4} \text{ rooms per can}} = {\text{ rooms}} $ ${\dfrac{20}{4}\text{ rooms}} = 5\text{ rooms}$ Jessica could paint 5 rooms.